.. Imagery

Limerick Nuclear Power Plant / 6 Minutes to Midnight

I am not much of a mall rat. Yesterday, I had a few guests who wanted to go shopping at the Philadelphia Premium Outlets, located about a 30 minute drive from Philadelphia at Limerick, Pennsylvania. Naturally, I couldn't resist taking a photograph of the nuclear power plant cooling towers located nearby.

The Limerick Nuclear Power Plant is one of three nuclear power facilities in Pennsylvania, the other two being Three Mile Island and Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station. Nuclear power plants often raise concerns of safety, and somewhat rightfully so; Chernobyl disaster and more recently the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster come to mind. About a quarter of a million people live withing a 10 mile radius (plume exposure zone) of the Limerick Plant, and about 8 million people live in a 50 mile radius (ingestion pathway zone). Earlier this year, in May, one of the reactors of this plant was shut down twice due to a glitch.

On March 28, 1979, one of the two reactors at the Three Mile Island Nuclear Generating Station near Harrisburg, PA went into a core meltdown, releasing disputed amounts of radiation. Although there were no direct deaths related to the accident, the long term health effects are still being studied and are disputed. While the damaged reactor was decommissioned, the other reactor continues to run.

To date, with the exception of Chernobyl, there hasn't been any other nuclear power plant accidents that have caused significant deaths or health effects. But, that does not imply that "nuclear power is safe" as it is promoted by nuclear industry lobbyists. In the recent years, there have been military attacks on various reactors under construction in the Middle East. Even if there are no technological malfunctions, or human errors, there is growing concern that nuclear reactors might be attacked by foreign forces or terrorists.

The Song of the Day for today is a reference to the Doomsday Clock. The symbolic clock, kept by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago, originally represented the threat of global nuclear war. Since 2007, it symbolizes the catastrophic destruction of humanity. The closer the clock is to midnight, the closer the world is estimated to be on the edge of a global disaster. Currently the Doomsday Clock is at 6 Minutes to Midnight.